


as though in slow motion, you wind up again

by manzini (writtendlessly)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (george), Abusive Relationships, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Minor Character Death, Slightly Hopeful Ending, camille belcourt is an abuser, camille is canonically an abuser don't forget this, please check notes for details, we're making this tag a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 11:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21319261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtendlessly/pseuds/manzini
Summary: Magnus has left Camille (for good, this time) and he's not coping well. Ragnor and Catarina find him, they talk and Magnus tries to heal the parts of him that are still salvageable.
Relationships: past Magnus Bane/Camille Belcourt - Relationship, past Magnus Bane/George
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	as though in slow motion, you wind up again

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE check notes at the end if there is a potential for you to be triggered by abuse/homophobia/transphobia. Keep yourself safe <3
> 
> Otherwise I'm not sure how much comfort is really here, but I tried. Magnus' relationship with Ragnor, Cat and Raphael is VERY important to me and I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> Twitter is @manziniyo
> 
> Title from Bug Hunter's song "Deserve Me" which I think is a good song for Magnus & Camille.

At first, it's silence. 

There used to be music in the living room from Magnus' first and only record player, spelled to stay pristine and to change out the records when they're done. There used to be laughter in the hallways, whispers in the bedroom, humming in the shower. There used to be Magnus' heart, beating so fast out of giddiness, affection, excitement, love. 

And then, all at once, it's gone. The music, the laughter, his heart. 

Magnus doesn't own any records that he didn't listen to when dancing with her. He doesn't have any reason to laugh or hum when it's just him in the apartment. Where his heart used to be, it's just a series of photographs depicting the last memory he'll ever have of her. Her beautiful face, snarling and mad, screaming at him the same things he's already heard before. 

Magnus drinks, lies on his rug, contemplates the benefits of just calcifying now instead of waiting a couple more centuries. 

Then after the silence, it's noise.

His wards keep pinging with all the messages and visitors he's turning away. His records are shattered and he wears boots in his own home to protect his feet, to step on them and know that the only sound they make anymore is the crunch under his soles. He screams, throws his bottle of whiskey, spells it back together, screams again.

He doesn't cry. He won't let her have that again.

(A dark night, it's raining, but when was it not raining in London? There's a bridge, he thinks. It's hard to see. He has wet socks. There's a photograph in one hand and a hat in the other. _If anything will keep me safe..._ he had said, but it didn't. Magnus didn't. He couldn't keep him safe.

Then weeks later, far from the bridge but still on the edge of something, still cold. She says _mortals are dispensable _and he agrees, of course, but he cries anyway.)

He gets manic, sometimes. He spells away his facial hair and applies makeup the way he used to before her. He makes twenty potions in one day. He sends pages and pages of his research to the Spiral Labyrinth. They send it back, tell him time travel is messy business, they don't want to be involved in his inevitable demise. Catarina would've helped him, he thinks, but he doesn't talk to her anymore. He doesn't talk to anyone anymore. 

Not a single friend left, and isn't that what she always told him? Any time he tried to leave, she would say _I'm the only one who cares_ and after enough fights and ultimatums she was right in the end. And now without her, he has no one. 

After the mania comes the crash, and the cycle is so tiring but he can't sleep. He eats, probably, and logically he knows that he's gotten up, that time has passed. But the apartment windows are blocked and he's not looking anyway.

And it's in this state that Ragnor finds him. Or not _finds_, necessarily, because that would imply a search. It's more like he stumbles upon Magnus, his traitorous wards letting Ragnor in without a single warning. 

"You're filthy," Ragnor says, and Magnus waves a hand in response. There's none of his usual elegance or grace to it; the use of magic is just a means to an end. A softly shimmering wave washes over him and he's clean and groomed. 

"You're heartbroken," Ragnor tries again, but Magnus hears _you're damaged, you're weak, you're wrong, not even a real man with your makeup and—_

Ragnor calls Catarina. She comes instantly, portals directly into his living room. Magnus' magic must be working on a subconscious level now, because he should have had to accept the portal first. Maybe he did and he just can't remember. She looks down at him, sprawled across a luxurious chaise lounge and says, "Oh, _Magnus_," and starts to cry.

It's a blur for a few hours (days? years?) after that. They clean him and the apartment up. They talk to him and share old stories as if he hadn't been there when they happened. They confess all the worries they kept locked in their hearts since the last fight, when he was forced to choose between his family and his love, and he thought he chose right. 

Catarina cradles his head on her lap, runs fingers through his hair. Ragnor sits across from them, watching, waiting. Magnus knows what's coming and there's no good time, no perfect moment.

"You have to leave her," Ragnor pleads, voice as close to desperate as Magnus has ever heard. 

Before Ragnor can continue Magnus says, barely a whisper, "I did."

Catarina's hand stills, she mutters, "For now, but..."

"No, I did," Magnus tries to sound confident, like he made the right choice. But even now, as Ragnor lets the relief shine through in his eyes, Magnus isn't sure if he did. "I left for good."

Catarina hesitates, he can feel it in the jerky movements of her hand, "Why?"

The unspoken question is: Why _now_? Why put up with all of that for so long, just to leave her?

And truthfully, it's not like Magnus didn't know what she was doing. She was isolating him, breaking him down just to build him up in her own image, inflicting pain and then maintaining it so that the ache never went away. But part of him thought he deserved it. If he thinks of his mother, his step-father, his village, the many lives along the way, the fire in his veins—then he _knows_ he deserves it. But if he couldn't save himself, he could at least save those he loves.

"She threatened his life," Magnus replies. He can almost feel the thought cross both their minds, like a ripple in a pond. _His life?_ They think. _George? But he's already—_

His throat feels like it's closing up all of a sudden, and he chokes out, "No, Raphael."

(It wasn't even that serious, he knew he was overreacting. She was trying to coax him into bed, made a joke about trying to make a baby, and Magnus just snapped. _I have a son already_, he told her and she just laughed and laughed and said _The fledgling? The one you left behind to come here? _

And when he didn't laugh with her she turned cold, screamed that he was being dramatic, that he never loved her, that no one would ever love him—_sick, queer, abomination_.)

"Why would she threaten Raphael?" Ragnor looks tense, even more so than before. He hasn't spent much time with Raphael, as far as Magnus knows, but Ragnor is fond of him nonetheless. 

Magnus is so, so tired. Now that there are other people around, he suddenly remembers what it's like to be alive and all the requirements that come with it, like sleeping and eating. He hopes that by being honest they'll leave faster, that he'll push them away for good, too.

"We were fighting," he says. Even with the heat radiating off of Catarina he feels cold. "It was the same fight as always. I don't want to, but she does. Usually I just take her to bed and she's happy, but it was different this time."

He doesn't elaborate and it doesn't matter, really, because that's not the part they focus on.

"You don't want to but—"

"She _forces you_ to—"

They speak over each other but Magnus raises his voice, silences them both, "No, no! It's not... She doesn't... I still get..."

Catarina puts a hand on his face, the other still petting his hair and scratching his scalp. "Magnus, if you don't want to, and she still makes you..."

He opens his mouth, then closes it, and doesn't say anything. She takes the silence as acceptance and Magnus files it away under _what I deserve_ and doesn't come back to it. He forces the topic to change, even if he's hearing _If you really loved me, If you really cared about me._

"I'm thinking of moving to New York," he tells them. He closes his eyes to brace for the outburst.

But all Ragnor does is sigh, "Back to America again?"

Magnus bristles. He knows what's waiting for him there, he doesn't need a reminder.

"Would you rather I stay here?" He snaps.

"I don't know," Ragnor offers. Magnus keeps his eyes shut, but somehow he knows Ragnor is watching him, cataloging the scars—metaphorical or otherwise. "I want you to be happy."

_That ship has sailed_, Magnus thinks, but he responds, "Then I'm moving back."

Catarina murmurs an, "okay," and the conversation lulls enough for Magnus to fall asleep. It's a fitful sleep and he's cold, and he knows they're talking over his head as he dozes. Catarina slips out from under him, Ragnor conjures a blanket. Magnus expects them to be gone in the morning.

When he wakes up they're still there. They're smiling softly at him, standing next to empty trunks that he can spell smaller and carry with him. Raphael is there now, too, and he hands Magnus a warm cup of _atole_ and doesn't comment when Magnus can't meet his eyes. 

They drink in silence, they pack in silence, and for once it's not stifling but comforting. When he's finished, he opens a portal to his apartment in New York. He turns to the others and says, "Thank you for everything."

Instead of responding, Ragnor just laughs.

"You think we're letting you go alone?" Catarina asks. That's exactly what Magnus thought. Warlocks tend to be solitary creatures, slightly nomadic, and Raphael has been hopping between clans in an attempt to avoid his past in New York.

He wants to tell them it's okay—that he doesn't need the help, that he doesn't _want_ them to follow him—but he tries to avoid lying to his friends as much as possible.

"Okay," Magnus says, and when they all step through the portal it feels like he's on an edge again. But underneath all the anxiety and desperation, there's an undercurrent of love and appreciation for his friends, the string tying them together that he couldn't remove even when he set fire to it. He'll hold on to that, even if the rest of him shakes apart, because it's all he has left. 

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings!!!
> 
> Abuse: The entire thing generally references Camille's abusive behaviors such as forcing him into sex, verbal abuse, threatening his friends, isolating him, etc.
> 
> Rape/Non-con: Magnus mentions that sometimes he "doesn't want to" but Camille does, so he just does it anyway. He doesn't consider it the same as rape in his mind. When thinking about this, he remembers her saying "if you really loved me".
> 
> Homophobia/Transphobia: Magnus remembers Camille saying he isn't a "real man", and her calling him "sick, queer, abomination" (queer used as a slur here, as they were together around the late 1800s/early 1900s)


End file.
